


Follow Your Lead

by hmweasley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anti-Werewolf Prejudice, Bigotry & Prejudice, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, F/M, Pre-Relationship Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:19:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29542956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmweasley/pseuds/hmweasley
Summary: It's taken ages, but Tonks has finally convinced Remus to have lunch with her in the Leaky Cauldron. She's not prepared to see for herself what he has to face every day.
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Kudos: 18





	Follow Your Lead

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:  
> Hogwarts - Write about something that helps someone grow as a person.

Tonks craned her neck to glimpse the door of the Leaky Cauldron for the tenth time in five minutes. She cursed the fact that she’d had to sit in a faraway corner because the pub was full. She knew she’d be on edge until Remus arrived. She still half expected him not to show up. It had taken her ages to convince him to have lunch with her, and he’d still been reluctant to consider it a date instead of a meal between friends.

Her heart hurt whenever she thought about it. He didn’t deserve what he put himself through, let alone what everyone else had done to him. She twisted in her seat to check the door again. Finally, Remus was coming towards her, being very careful as he maneuvered around full tables. Tonks smiled widely when he reached her and lowered himself into the only other chair at the small table she’d claimed. At one point, their “table” had surely been a stool.

“I’m sorry for being a little late,” Remus said, cringing as he unwound his threadbare scarf from around his neck.

“Nonsense,” Tonks scoffed as if she hadn’t been glancing at the door every few seconds waiting for him to appear. “I’m sure you were busy at work. You’re still trying to make a good impression on them.”

“Right,” he agreed with a grimace. “I couldn’t explain to my Muggle boss that I needed to Apparate to London for lunch, and he wanted to take me to the only pub in the village. It was a tricky one to get myself out of.”

“That’s great!” Tonks exclaimed, earning the attention of every table around them. Remus smiled apologetically at each of the diners when Tonks didn’t even register that she’d been disruptive. “Your boss wanted to have lunch with you? That means you’ve gotten in good with him, Remus.”

Remus shrugged and fiddled with the menu that was laying on the table in front of him.

“I’ve only been there six weeks,” he said. “There’s only been one full moon so far. That’s usually easy enough. It’s the third or fourth one when the problems start. I shouldn’t get too comfortable.”

Tonks opened her mouth to assure him that this boss would surely look past that, even if none of his previous bosses (aside from Dumbledore) ever had, but she was interrupted by the waitress appearing at their table, notepad and quill hovering in the air beside her. Tonks smiled in greeting, but the woman only scowled down at them. Tonks frowned. The same woman had greeted her when she’d first arrived, and they’d made small talk about the new robes shop that had just opened up in Diagon Alley. Tonks couldn’t imagine what had happened to drastically change her mood.

“What’ll you be having?” she snapped. 

Tonks’ eyes widened, but Remus took the waitress’ demeanor in stride.

“Just the special please,” he said, handing her his menu with a perfectly polite smile on his lips.

Instead of taking the menu from him, she drew her wand, and with a flick, the menu floated at her side beneath the notepad and quill. Tonks continued staring at her, forgetting that she, too, needed to order.

“For you?” the woman asked, her tone showing how displeased she was to ask again.

“I’ll have what he’s having,” Tonks said, motioning at Remus with her own copy of the menu. She hadn’t actually heard what Remus had ordered as she’d been struggling to understand what was going on with the waitress, but for the same reason, she couldn’t bother herself with looking at the menu that she’d been obsessively looking over before Remus arrived in between her glances at the door.

The waitress snatched Tonks’ menu from her hands, not bothering with the levitating spell she’d done on Remus’. She still didn’t take Remus’ menu in her hands as she walked away, letting it bob along beside her with the notepad and quill.

“That was strange,” Tonks said slowly as she watched the woman’s retreating back. “She was perfectly friendly when I came in and told her I was waiting for someone.”

Remus cringed and glanced at the tables around them before he spoke quietly.

“She knows what I am.”

Tonks scowled. That was a ridiculous excuse for a number of reasons. Tonks didn’t even know where to start.

“How?” she asked, sounding heated though they both knew it wasn’t Remus who she was angry with. “It’s not as if it’s tattooed across your forehead.”

Remus allowed himself a small, amused smile despite the sadness that lingered in his eyes.

“No, but it is a public record at the Ministry. I don’t know how she found out, but I’ve been coming here at least once a year since I was eleven. Word gets around eventually, especially after I left Hogwarts. The whole staff here has known for a while. Not all of them are quite like that. A few of them are a lot more scared than angry.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Tonks exclaimed. “It’s not like you can help what you are.”

Remus’ eyes widened, and he motioned frantically for her to be quieter, his eyes darting around the pub. This time, though, the people around them were prepared for Tonks’ volume, and none of them glanced their way. It did very little to set him at ease.

“Sorry,” Tonks said sheepishly, using a full blown whisper that was even more suspicious than taking at a normal volume. “But it’s true.”

“Of course I know that,” Remus said in a voice that sure did sound like he wasn’t convinced of that at all. “That’s just the way people are with my kind. There’s nothing to be done about it. They haven’t kicked me out of here yet, and that’s more than I can say for quite a few other places.”

The rage in the pit of Tonks’ stomach was overwhelming. “That doesn’t change that it’s ridiculous,” she said.

Remus ran a hand over his tired eyes, his gaze focusing on the tabletop instead of Tonks.

“It doesn’t, but I deal with this every day, Tonks. What do you expect me to do? If I fight it, I’ll get kicked out, and that’s not helping me or making them realize the error of their ways. The best thing I can do is grin and bear it. Maybe if I’m nice, they’ll see through their prejudice eventually. Probably not. But there’s nothing to be done.”

Tonks stared at him, her mouth moving uselessly as she struggled with what to say. She desperately wanted to be angry. It felt righteous and like the only appropriate response as far as she saw it. Part of her wanted to tell Remus that, yes, he should fight against people who treated him that way. He didn’t deserve it, but those people _did_ deserve a taste of their own medicine.

But when she looked into Remus’ pleading eyes, she couldn’t actually say any of that no matter how true it felt deep in her gut. Never before had she considered what it might be like to put up with people behaving like that every day, how exhausting it would be to have to defend yourself day in and day out. For the first time, she realized that the dark circles that lined Remus’ eyes might not only be caused by the full moon.

“I’ve never considered that,” Tonks admitted, her cheeks warming.

She was surprised when Remus smiled gently at her.

“Why would you?” he asked. “You’ve never had a reason to.”

Tonks took a deep, shaky breath, suddenly unsure of herself. It was a feeling she didn’t like, and her brain was desperate to get her out of it even as she told herself that she should sit with the discomfort and seriously consider what Remus had told her. Perhaps he had told her all of it before; she just hadn’t been listening properly.

The waitress brought them their food, slamming Remus’ down with enough force that a chip fell off the plate. He still smiled politely, and Tonks did her best to follow his lead, despite everything she wanted to do herself.


End file.
